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Northern wrestlers host Jamestown college in dual match
By Ryan Divish/Havre Daily News Sports Editor/rdivish@havredailynews.com
Montana State University-Northern wrestling coach David Ray believes
there's a standard of intimidation that comes with dual meets. It's not like
a tournament, it's one team against another with each team's best wrestler
facing the other team's best wrestler at each weight class.
And Ray wants to dominate every match and every dual to show teams they are
wrestling and teams looking at the box score, that the Lights are one of the
best in the country and they do the intimidating.
The Lights will get the chance to do some intimidating when they host the
Jamestown College Jimmies for a dual match on Saturday at 11 a.m. at the
MSU-Northern gymnasium.
Northern is coming off a solid but not spectacular showing the University of
Wyoming Cowboy Open. The Lights had several wrestlers place in the tournament
with Emmett Willson winning the 197-pound division and Stryder Davis placing
second at 157, but on the whole, Ray felt many of his wrestlers could have
finished a little higher in their respective weight classes.
"It wasn't great," Ray said of his team's performance. "They
wrestled okay, but not good. If they had wrestled good they'd have placed
much higher."
Ray will be looking for more than a good performance on Saturday. With only a
handful of home duals, the opportunity to wrestle well in front of friends
and family should be great motivation.
"I expect them to come out ready to
wrestle because we don't have many home duals," Ray said. "We have
to start wrestling more consistently because we are coming to a tough part of
our schedule."
Indeed, Northern will face a much-improved Dickinson State on Tuesday and
then head to Las Vegas for a pair of duals against Missouri Valley College
and Central Washington University and the prestigious Las Vegas Invitational.
"We have some good competition coming up and we need start building some
momentum and confidence," Ray said.
The first step in that process begins on Saturday against Jamestown. Ray
doesn't hem and haw, saying his team should win the dual, losing at most four
matches, including a forfeit at 125 pounds.
"We could be as good as 8-2," Ray said. "But we need some
wrestlers to start stepping up their efforts."
The two best matches should come at 157 pounds and heavyweight.
Davis will face Jamestown's two-time All-American Tom Iverson at 157 in what
should be a good match.
"Stryder is wrestling very well right now," Ray said. "He
should have won his division at the Cowboy, but the seeding was messed up. He
had to wrestle three very tough matches to get to the finals and by then he
was so mentally and physically fatigued he got caught on his back."
At heavyweight, Northern newcomer Mazi Burke will take on returning
All-American Brandon Lemer. Burke, who normally wrestles at 197, will move up
because Ray might have him wrestle heavyweight at the NAIA national
tournament.
"Jamestown's heavyweight is solid," Ray said. "We're wrestling
Mazi instead of Emmett because we want to see how Mazi will do against a top
heavyweight. "
Other matches that could be interesting are Aaron Jensen and Chris Feist at
165, David Waters and Clyde Switzer at 174 and Anthony Haukenberry and Jake
Esser at 149.
"Some of our kids have to understand that they have to wrestle at a high
level at all times," Ray said. "We can't have that mentality that
it's all right to lose early in the season because you don't want to go too
hard too soon. We don't believe in that here, we go hard all the time."
WT MSU-Northern Jamestown College
125 - Forfeit Shane Hase, Fr.
133 - Caleb Schaeffer Cody Fisher, Jr.
141 - Chris Smith Travis Ayres, So.
149 - Anthony Haukenberry Jake Esser, Jr.
157 - Stryder Davis Tom Iverson, Sr.
165 - Aaron Jensen Chris Feist, So.
174 - David Waters Clyde Switzer, Fr.
184 - Kyle Fisher Sam Sand, Fr.
197 - Emmett Willson Joe Vincent, Jr.
HWT- Mazi Burke Brandon Lemer, So.
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